Umphang: Scientist Inna Birchnco started crying because he described the smoldering protected forest Thailand Where she was collecting samples from local trees immersed in wildfire smoke.
He said, “This beautiful, diverse community of trees and animals is being destroyed as you see it, as you see it,” he said.
Birchnco, Royal Botanic Garden, a geneticist from Kev, collecting seeds and leaves in Umfong Wildlife Sanctuary along with colleagues from Britain and Thailand.
They will study how temperature and moisture affect germination and whether genetics determines those reactions.
This one day can help ensure that redistribution is done with trees that can withstand the warm temperatures and dried conditions caused by climate change.
But in the north -west region of Thailand, in Umphang, scientists faced toll that human activity and climate change are already on the forests that are ancient and preserved.
Birchenko and his colleagues Kilometer After kilometers through the burnt or still-a-small forest, each leg shakes the columns of black and brown ash.
They passed thick fall trees that were smoking or even dancing to flames, and with corn husk according to the field ground, within the boundaries of all sanctuaries.
Wildlife for which the sanctuary is famous – hornbills, deer, elephants and even tigers were not seen.
Instead, there were marks of the effect of fire: a palm -shaped cicada, the neon yellow in front of it, the end of it was black; And a wild fountain nest, disturbs five scorched eggs.
“My heart is broken,” said Nattanat yaamthasongA PhD student at the Forest Restoration and Research Unit (Forru) of Chiang Mai University who is working with Birchnco and his Keev collaborative masses Brother-in-law,
“I hope a wildlife sanctuary or national park is a protected area. I am not expecting a lot of agricultural land in this way, a lot of fire on the way.”
Global threat of wildfire
Burning in Umfong Wildlife Sanctuary is hardly an outsider.
Wildfires are common in Thailand during the country’s spring burning season, when farmers prepared fields to prepare for new crops.
Some communities are allowed to live and farming inside the protected areas due to long -standing presence on land.
Traditionally, burning has helped farmers enrich the soil, and fire can be a natural part of the ecosystem of a forest. Some seeds rely on fire to sprout.
But agriculture irritation can quickly spread to the adjacent forest – intentionally or by accident.
Dry conditions of climate change and growing economic pressure on farmers increase risk, which are willing to plant more frequent and large areas.
Experts have warned that there is no chance to revive naturally in the forests subject to frequent, high intensity fire, and it can never be cured.
Fire data based on satellite images compiled by US Space Agency NASA shows hotspots and active fire in many protected areas in Thailand in recent weeks.
Around tourist hotspot Chiang Mai, fire fighting helicopters released water on the local wildfire at a cost of thousands of dollars per mission.
But the remote Umfong is far from the public’s eyes.
Local environmentalists say that park Rangers protect the region, but they are often weak, poorly revived and overseased.
This is a long-standing problem in Thailand, whose national parks department has sometimes closed the protected areas in a bid to prevent the fire from spreading. The department did not respond to the AFP requests for the comment.
And the challenge is hardly unique for Thailand. The disastrous Blaze has destroyed the rich California, Japan and South Korea in recent months.
Forest harvesting at ‘very high speed’
Nevertheless, it was a great view for a seed germination specialist Sala in the Kev.
“The ancient rainforest that we were expecting to see, it is really nobody else here, it is gone,” he said.
“This actually reflects the importance of preserving the preservation of biodiversity. Everything is being deprived of a very, very high speed.”
Sala and Birchnco Cave Millennium Seed Banks, which keeps approximately 2.5 billion seeds from more than 40,000 wild plant species.
They want to “unlock” knowledge from the seed bank and help partners like Fouru, who have worked for decades how to rebuild healthy forests in Thailand.
The partnership will map the genetic structure and variety of three tree species, predict their flexibility for climate change, and eventually portrayed seed areas in Thailand.
“We hope that some population will be more flexible to climate change. And then … what population can use better to use,” Sala said.
Back to Britain, the seeds will be sprouted at different temperatures and moisture levels to find their upper borders.
Genetic analysis will show how the population is related and which mutations can produce more climate-flexible trees.
But the first team needs samples.
Scientists are focusing on three species: Albizia Odoratisima, Falentus Embellica – also known as Indian Goseberry – and Cipindas Rarak, a type of soap tree.
All three develop in various climate in Thailand, are not endangered and are traditionally used by local communities, which can help find them.
Nevertheless, most of the search reveals something like a victim of an Easter egg, in which the team has to scan your surroundings for patterns of leaves of their targeted trees, trapped through the team.
‘Purchase of genetic diversity’
“Ma Sak?” Sala Sala, whose fruits were once used as a natural detergent, using the local name for Sapindus Rarak.
It is up to Fouru Nursery and Field Technician Thongyod chiangakantaA former park ranger and plant identification specialist, to confirm.
The seeds are ideally collected from fruit on the tree, but branches can be dozens of feet in the air.
A low-technical solution is in hand-a red string is thrown towards the canopy with weight attached to one end and looped on some branches.
It sends a jai of fruit mixing below, as well as to analyze the leaves for birchnco. Separate leaf and branch samples are carefully pressed to join more than seven million samples in the herberium of the kev.
Teams will collect thousands of seeds in all, by carefully cutting the open samples at each stop, make sure they are not rotten or infected.
They do not take more than a quarter of what is available, leaves sufficient for natural growth from “soil seed banks” that surrounds each tree.
Each successful collection is a relief after preparation of months, but the rigid reality of the forest’s uncertain future hangs on the team.
“It’s enthusiasm to find trees … and is really unhappy at the same time because you know that five meters (16 ft) next to the tree is a forest fire, there is a low area, and I think these trees are going to go over the next years,” said Sala.
The team is collecting at seven places across Thailand, collecting samples that are “a capsule of genetic variety we have preserved for the future”, Birchnco said.
“We are doing something, but we’re so low and potentially so late.”
